


When the Stars Go Blue

by msraven



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Clint Needs a Hug, M/M, Minor Spoilers, Phil Needs a Hug, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/pseuds/msraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil doesn't understand until months later, but everything ends the moment Loki's scepter spears through his chest.</p><p>A fic which shows that sometimes, the biggest lessons we need to learn are the ones we least expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When all is lost

**Author's Note:**

> I am warning now that I was in an angsty mood when I wrote this. There is an eventual happy ending, but be prepared for what precedes it to be rather sad.

Phil doesn't understand until months later, but everything ends the moment Loki's scepter spears through his chest.

"Uh, sir?" Ward asks warily, "We should probably go back the way we came."

Phil looks around for threats, but doesn't see any immediate danger among the normal crowd of New Yorkers on the sidewalk.

"The Avengers still don't know you're alive, right?" Ward continues. "So unless you want them to, we should turn back because I'm pretty sure that's Agent Bar-, I mean, Hawkeye standing outside that cafe."

Phil's eyes automatically snap over and his repaired heart clenches painfully in his chest at the sight of Clint leaning against the outer wall of a cafe across the street. Clint is in casual street clothes - his old, battered leather jacket worn over a t-shirt, jeans, and the usual combat boots - completely unaware of the appraising looks he's getting from most of the people walking by. Clint is as gorgeous, if not more so, than Phil remembers and his fingers itch to reach out and touch.

Before Phil can decide whether to retreat or run across to Clint, the former SHIELD agent's face breaks into a grin and his eyes light up as another man exits the cafe. Phil's stomach plummets as the man pulls Clint into a kiss in the middle of the busy sidewalk and Clint leans into it without restraint. The two men break apart and grin at each other, oblivious to their surroundings. They kiss again briefly and then walk away with their fingers intertwined between them. 

"Oh!" Ward says from next to Phil. "I didn't realize Barton was… You okay, sir? You look pale."

Phil turns and strides back toward HQ, putting distance between himself and the image of Clint in another man's arms. 

He doesn't stop to talk to anyone and no one attempts to speak to with him as Phil heads straight to a workstation with direct access to the SHIELD database. He pulls up every piece of footage SHIELD has on the Avengers since the battle with the Chitauri - everything Phil hasn't let himself look at since he came back from the dead. Phil studies Clint's familiar features, but nothing in the videos tell him what he needs to know. Clint has always been good at compartmentalizing his reactions in the field from the rest of his life. 

Phil keeps looking, not sure what exactly he's searching for until he finds it. Eight months ago, there had a been a momentary glitch in SHIELD's firewall. Enough of a glitch to be noted, but not enough to have been flagged. Phil digs deeper and finds smaller glitches that occur every two weeks, on schedule, but nothing after that last, larger glitch a day after one of the scheduled ones. Eight months ago coincides with Phil's return from Tahiti, which means that the Avengers know Phil is alive and have known all along.

Maria only shrugs at Phil's discovery. "It was bound to happen sooner or later and it at least explains why they didn't break down our doors when that station footage of you made it out before we could squash it."

"Have they given any indication that they know?" Phil asks.

"They've been no more or less cooperative than they've always been," Maria replies. "They're working fairly well as a team. Maybe they decided that overrides whatever threw them together in the first place. I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure it will all come out in the open soon enough."

Phil nods at her assessment and leaves Maria's office, telling himself that all of this had been his choice to make, that he had no room to second guess his decisions, no matter the outcome. 

But as Phil lays awake in his bunk that night, his mind is filled with images and memories of Clint that he can't dispel. Phil can still clearly recall the first time he saw Clint with his bow, the way Clint's brow furrows in concentration when he loses himself in a novel, how his eyes sparkle when he laughs, and a million little things that had caught Phil's attention for years before he'd given in to the attraction. When Phil finally falls asleep in the early hours of the morning, his dreams are tormented by vivid details of how Clint tasted the first time they kissed, how amazing it felt each time he'd buried himself inside Clint's tight heat, the delicious sounds Clint made as he clenched around Phil when he came, and the intensity of Clint's gaze as he watched Phil come apart above him. 

Phil is tired and distracted the next day, glad that most of the team has dispersed during their downtime. Melinda knows better than to comment and Ward finds enough tact to stay quiet. Phil spends several hours in the gym and gladly falls into an exhausted sleep just after dinner. 

He wakes with a gasp a few scant hours later, still trying to shake off the dream, the nightmare, of fucking slowly into Clint only to look up and see another man's face reflected in the window behind the bed. When he can't easily banish the dream from his thoughts, Phil throws off the covers and slips out of his bunk. He plays a hunch and drives to the apartment they'd kept hidden from everyone, shaking with barely suppressed rage when he arrives just as the man from the cafe bounces down the front steps and skips down the sidewalk toward the subway. 

Phil pounds on the front door and Clint's laughter rings through the wood before it opens. 

"I told you it was okay to spend the ni--" 

Clint's happiness dies out with his voice when he sees Phil, who pushes his way inside the apartment before Clint can regain his senses and shut the door in his face. He turns to face Clint, unable to ignore how his lips are kiss-swollen and his hair is standing up messily or how the apartment still smells like sex. Phil's anger boils over and he uses his body to crowd Clint against the door until it clicks shuts. 

"How did feel to fuck another man in our bed?" Phil asks through clenched teeth. 

The words knock Clint out of his stupor and he shoves hard enough at Phil to have him staggering back to hit the opposite wall. 

"Go to hell, Phil!" Clint yells. "You don't get to be angry at me after what you've done. I can fuck whoever I want wherever I want. Get the fuck out! You lost all rights to me and this apartment when you let me think you were dead."

"No," Phil says, all of his anger fading when Clint's voice catches on the last word. "I'm sorry."

"Don't!" Clint warns. "Don't say something you don't mean and there's nothing you can say that will make anything you've done forgivable, so just save it."

Clint starts to walk into the living room, then thinks better of it and goes into the kitchen, bracing his hands against the counter with his back to Phil when he follows.

"I asked you to leave," Clint says softly, the finality in his voice more harsh than when he'd been yelling. 

"Not until we talk," Phil counters. 

Clint turns around and Phil's heart drops at the devastation on Clint's face. Anger, he believes they can overcome, but this is something that suddenly feels insurmountable.

"What more do you want from me?" Clint asks. "Do you want to hear how your death almost destroyed me? How I'd never even told Nat about us because you asked me not to and how it didn't feel right to tell her after? How lonely it felt to grieve for you without anyone knowing why? How I had to leave SHIELD because it drove me crazy seeing pieces of you around every corner? How I took a knife to our bed and our sheets because I couldn't stand sleeping close to anything that still smelled like you? Is that what you want to hear?"

Any words Phil may have had get stuck in his throat and he can barely breathe, let alone speak.

"Or do you want to hear how I stayed an Avenger because I thought it was your last wish? How I had to hear from Tony Stark that you were still alive? How I had to sit in a room with the other Avengers and watch video of you walking around HQ like nothing had happened? How I defended you in front of the others and kept Nat from killing you herself because I still believed you'd come for me? How I sat here for months expecting you to walk through that door? How I drank myself into a stupor for a week when I finally admitted to myself that you never loved me like I loved you?"

"You're wrong about that," Phil says, frantic to make Clint understand. "I did, I _do_ love you, Clint. I never meant for any of this to happen. I did what I had to, what I thought was right."

Clint smiles sadly and shakes his head. "No. You're the one who's wrong, Phil. You may think you love me, but you don't. You can't love someone and do what you did. You can't love someone and think that anything you put me through was right."

Phil rushes forward and grabs Clint's hands, needing the contact to keep from feeling like Clint is already beyond his reach.

"I'm sorry, Clint. I never meant to hurt you," Phil pleads, "Give me another chance to prove it. We always agreed that saving the world was more important than either of us."

"We were wrong," Clint says remorsefully. He pulls his hands out of Phil's grip, places a hand on Phil's chest, and pushes him gently away. "It's too late, Phil."

"You can't mean that."

"I do," Clint whispers. "Chris isn't just a quick fuck. He cares about me and I care about him. When we met, I didn't think it was possible for me to feel like this again, but Chris is proving me wrong. He doesn't want to hide us." Clint smiles, his face melting into a look of affection and awe. "We had lunch with his mother today. Can you imagine someone wanting to introduce _me_ to their parents?"

"Does he know who you really are?" Phil asks, too busy feeling the hot stab of jealousy from someone else putting that look on Clint's face to reassure him that he is nothing to be ashamed of. 

"He does," Clint answers and Phil's last shred of hope slips away. "Chris is a freelance reporter who managed to miss the biggest story in the world because he was busy investigating slave traders on the other side of the globe. It was nice at first, meeting someone who had no idea who I was. Telling him everything - my past, SHIELD, the Avengers, Loki - was done more as a challenge than anything else. It was my attempt to push him away, but he stayed. He honestly does not care. Chris really loves me and I think I'm finally ready to love him back."

Clint startles and then smiles, something small that grows into a happy grin. "I do. I do love him back," he says with surprise. "I didn't realize until…" Clint looks at Phil and his eyes fill with a mix of sorrow and joy. "I guess I had to see what love wasn't to know what love is."

A small, detached part of Phil's brain acknowledges that losing his heart isn't any less painful the second time around. He takes a shuddering breath and slowly steps away from where Clint is still standing against the counter.

"I'm sorry, Phil," Clint says sincerely.

"Don't be," Phil tells him calmly despite how his stomach is churning and how he's barely able to breathe through the pain in his chest. "None of this is your fault. You deserve to be happy and I'll spend the rest of my life regretting not being the person to give you that."

Phil sucks in another breath as Clint steps forward and places his hand against Phil's cheek.

"You did make me happy, Phil. Maybe we were just never meant for forever." Clint reaches up and brushes a feather-light kiss to Phil's jaw before stepping back. "The world is lucky to have you."

"Goodbye Clint."

"Goodbye Phil."


	2. Trust in hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same warning as the previous chapter...

Phil isn't quite sure how he manages it, but he goes back to work. He goes back to saving the world in small and big ways, no longer for himself, but because Clint deserves as much happiness as Phil is capable of giving him. It is the one thing Clint was wrong about. Phil does love Clint with a passion that still surprises him with its intensity and unwavering strength, even if Clint can no longer return it. But Phil was arrogant and in his arrogance believed that nothing short of death could really tear them apart, not understanding how death impacted the living or how kindness and generosity could create a rift as easily as a spear. 

Phil learns everything there is to know about Christopher Alan Forrest because his need to protect will always be stronger than his desire for self preservation. He keeps tabs on Clint's life despite how much it hurts to watch from afar - a strange sort of penance, Phil admits, for all the pain he had caused the man he loves. 

A year passes and Phil knows before the small box arrives at HQ that Chris and Clint have bought a small house together and plan to get married in the spring. Inside the box are the last of Phil's things from the apartment, the last reminders of a love he'd kept hidden when he should have shouted his joy from the tallest buildings in Manhattan. Phil puts the box in storage for safety and tucks a picture Clint had taken of them into the inside pocket of his jacket, near his heart. He never goes into the field without it again.

Phil and his team are on a mission in Ecuador when he receives an alert that Chris proved his worthiness of Clint's love by protecting a group of schoolchildren from a warlord's soldiers at the cost of his own life. Phil rushes his team back to New York, driven by the knowledge that Clint needs him and that nothing that's happened between them matters in the face of this new tragedy.

They cross into US airspace and are immediately bombarded by frantic calls from all of the Avengers, desperate to know if Phil has any idea where Clint may be. Phil ignores them all, puts his team in stand down at SHIELD HQ, and makes his way to the Central Park Zoo.

Clint doesn't acknowledge Phil's arrival and continues to stare unseeingly at the penguin enclosure, his body thrumming with how hard he's fighting to keep himself together. 

"Why are you here?" Clint finally asks, his voice barely loud enough to carry across the small distance separating them.

"Because we were friends once. Before we tried to be something more and I broke us." Phil reaches out and wraps an arm around Clint's taut shoulders. "The one thing I will never cease to be is your friend and what I think you need right now is a friend to hold you together so that you can let go."

Clint body starts to shake under Phil's arm and then he collapses into Phil's chest with a heart wrenching sob. Phil wraps his other arm around Clint and holds him as he cries, continues to hold him until Phil's jacket is soaked through with tears and Clint lies exhausted in his arms. Phil supports Clint's weight as they make their way out of the zoo and to the Tower where Phil delivers him into the waiting arms of the Avengers. Phil meets their gazes unflinchingly. He needs no absolution from them.

It's Clint who initiates the next contact a few weeks later, needing to talk to someone who doesn't speak or look at him with pity. They have breakfast at a diner near SHIELD that they used to frequent and it's nice to talk about inconsequential things and to refamiliarize themselves with a friendship they'd thought they'd lost. They don't talk about the past, focusing instead on the present and the future. Phil is happy - a friendship with Clint is more than he'd imagined possible when they'd parted a year ago.

Clint sells the house and moves into the Tower permanently. The next time Phil's team is in New York for downtime, they all get invited over for dinner with the Avengers. It's a little scary to watch the two teams interact and Phil is more than a little concerned by the gleam Clint gets in his eye as they watch Natasha and Melinda deep in conversation. 

Time passes and life, for all its complex twists and turns, is taking a decided climb upwards and Phil should not have been surprised when it takes a literal crash downward. 

The plane has been hit by some sort of energy weapon and they have no engines or control of any systems that can prevent their descent to the unforgiving farmland below. Phil straps himself in and knows he'll survive the crash, but not without needing to thank Stark for his engineering genius and a fair amount of pain. He comes to, alive and on the ground, to a searing pain in his leg as he's dragged to safety by the SHIELD personnel who'd been scrambled from a nearby base. 

"Broken leg, hip, ribs," Phil tells the medic as they lay him down gently among the tall grass. "I lost some time, so possible concussion. My team?"

"All alive and being cared for," the medic responds. 

Phil relaxes and it's then that he notices that there are more than SHIELD helicopters circling the crash. He counts no less than four news helicopters hovering overhead, kept away by the smoke and the government aircraft. The news helicopters are too high up to see much on the ground, but there is enough of the fuselage intact to make the eagle unmistakable even at that altitude. 

_Clint!_ Phil's mind screams and he reaches up to grab the medic, choking off whatever the man was about to say next.

"Get me a satellite phone," Phil demands.

"Sir, you're at risk for internal bleeding," the medic argues. "You need to be sedated and moved to base. Your phone call will have to wait."

Phil pulls the medic closer and snarls in his face. "Get. Me. A. Satellite. Phone. That was not a request. And if you dare sedate me, you'll find out that I'm significantly scarier than the Hulk on a rampage."

The medic blanches, but he's saved from a decision by Melinda pushing a phone into Phil's hand.

"Here," she says. "Stop scaring the kid. He's just trying to help."

Phil doesn't bother looking over at her. May wouldn't come to Phil's aid if she wasn't okay and hadn't already checked on the others. Phil dials and isn't surprised when the call is picked up after the first ring.

"Barton," Clint answers and Phil can hear the slight tremor in his voice from just the single word.

"Clint," Phil says, his own voice unsteady.

"Oh God, Phil!" Clint cries. "The plane. Are you okay?"

"It crashed. I'm okay," Phil says hurriedly as Clint can't quite stop the strangled sob from his end of the line. "I didn't want you to think that I… I'm fine, I swear."

"He's not fine," Melinda cuts in, leaning in close to the phone from above, "but he will be once he lets the medic sedate and move him."

Phil tries to pull the phone away except that Melinda uses the opportunity to jab the medic's needle into Phil's arm herself. She snags the phone out of his hand and the last thing Phil remembers before the sedatives take hold is Melinda speaking calm, reassuring words into the receiver. 

When Phil next opens his eyes, it's to the sight of Clint smirking at him from the chair beside his bed in Medical. Clint shakes his head fondly as Phil grins goofily back, still on the trailing edge of the good drugs the doctors had given him. Clint stands and helps Phil raise the bed to a sitting position before handing him some water to drink. 

"You're slipping, old man," Clint teases. "The Avengers had to step in and take care of your baddie."

Phil frowns and reaches out to trail his fingertips along the edge of a white bandage that is peeking out from the top of Clint's t-shirt. Clint wraps his fingers around Phil's hand and squeezes.

"Barely a scratch," Clint assures him before smirking again. "I hear Skye got some great video of Stark flailing around in his suit after getting zapped by the same weapon that took out your plane."

Several doctors along with Phil's SHIELD team and the Avengers walk into the room, interrupting any further conversation. A hopeful warmth spreads through Phil when Clint doesn't move away from where he's perched on the bed at Phil's hip or lets go of Phil's hand, keeping their intertwined fingers laying lightly on the bed between them. 

The drugs have definitely faded by the time everyone leaves, various aches and pains making themselves known, but Phil wants nothing dulling his senses as Clint stays behind after the others have gone. He knows that everything hinges on this conversation and there is no moment in Phil's life that will ever be as important as this.

"I still can't believe you wouldn't let the medics take care of you until you'd called me," Clint says with a soft, almost shy, smile.

"It was important to me," Phil replies without embarrassment, holding tightly to Clint's hand.

Clint looks down at their hands and then back up into Phil's eyes. "Why?"

"Because I didn't want you thinking for any second longer than necessary that you'd lost someone else. Because your life has already been too full of pain and if there is anything I can do to prevent more, I will," Phil answers before letting all of the truth spill from his lips. "Because I love you."

Clint's face doesn't flicker at Phil's announcement. "I thought you wanted to be friends?"

"I do," Phil assures him. "If that is all you're able to give me, then I will cherish it like the gift it is. But I won't lie to you. Not anymore. No after what it cost me. I love you, Clint. I never stopped and I never plan to."

"I still don't think I can forgive you for what you did," Clint says tentatively. "But maybe it's not about my forgiving you. Maybe it's about trusting you not to make that same choice again."

"Do you?" Phil asks. "Do you trust me to love you? That it took me years to learn how to love you the way you deserve, but that I will spend the rest of our lives ensuring you never doubt me again?"

Everything stops in the time it takes to Clint to respond. Phil stops breathing and his heart pauses as it sits in Clint's grasp, waiting to be discarded or reawakened. 

"Yes, Phil. Yes, I do."

Clint leans forward to press their lips together and love, strong and pure, spears through him. Phil takes a breath and lives.

_fin_


End file.
